For Better or Werts : TV Worth Watching

WEIRD & WILD: 'Lost' 2.0 starts on G4

We're about to get lost in Lost. David Bianculli's Monday best bets pick the Sci Fi repeats (also available in HD!), but I'd also like to point you toward the cycle beginning Monday on G4, otherwise a gamer/geek channel.

(Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

This run offers ABC's standard Lost episodes Monday-Friday at 4 p.m. ET -- then switches at 9 p.m. ET weeknights to what G4 calls a "2.0 interactive version of the series." Like the channel's pop-up plays of Star Trek, the 2.0 airings add chat-like onscreen factoids and trivia about what you're watching, aimed to illuminate elements of the plot and characters.

(Not to mention get you to watch another hour of G4 programming.)

In this case, the info overload is probably a boon -- Lost is so dense sometimes, so loaded with obscure "clues," that you're not sure who's who, where's where, when's when, or which magic numbers actually add up to anything. Maybe G4 can help clarify.

2 Comments

JimBo said:

Diane-

Looks like you missed SciFi channel showing repeats of Lost too, also starting Monday (since this is now Wednesday, that was a couple days ago). SciFi started with a block of 4 episodes, I'm pretty sure -- and since that's how they re-ran the whole Stargate series from it's beginning (4 hours at a time on Mondays), I'd guess they're doing the same thing with Lost.

Since SciFi is on pretty much every cable systems basic cable set up it would seem like many more people would be able to see Lost there instead of G4, which I understand has a pretty minimal presence on cable systems around the country. (I could be wrong about that, but it might be interesting to know the exact numbers.)

Also, the pop-up things sound exactly like what Lost did when they showed re-runs on ABC. (The show is on ABC, right?) These were the "enhanced" episodes, probably shown when nothing else was on. Which I'm guessing is why I saw a couple of them. Doesn't seem to me you should be giving G4 credit for something that wasn't their idea or enhancement. The other thing is, I kinda have to wonder why I know this stuff -- I've seen only a handful of episodes, but I did get kind of addicted last season because this show was flat-out the funniest thing on TV (not intentionally, I don't think) -- and you don't. Are you not watching enough TV?

September 17, 2008 2:48 AM

Diane said:

JimBo, I did mention the Sci Fi showing, but didn't go into detail because David Bianculli had already covered it in Monday's Best Bets. (I did let readers know that Sci Fi was offering it in high-def, for those who get the Sci Fi HD channel.)

ABC didn't do the trivia treatment for every episode, only for those they repeated as special events or to fill time during the strike.

And I only wish I weren't watching enough TV! Is it possible to watch while you're asleep?

September 17, 2008 10:30 AM

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Diane Werts has been glued to the tube since she can remember, growing up in a household where the TV came on first thing in the morning and stayed on till bedtime and beyond. She worked for the USA Film Festival, then for The Dallas Morning News writing about everything from Shakespeare to macrame art to rock music (and has the hearing loss to prove it). She moved to New York's Newsday to edit their glossy TV magazine, then returned to writing about television, specializing in its stranger permutations. She's a past president of the Television Critics Association.

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